John Moses House (1745)

According to the Sesquicentennial History of the Town of Canton, published in 1956, the house at 516 Cherry Brook Road was known as Fool’s Paradise. It was built in about 1745 by John Moses. The Sesquicentennial History claims that the North Canton Burying Ground was located on his premises and that his two-year-old daughter Eunice was the first to be buried there in 1754. Other sources note that the cemetery was a gift of Peter Curtiss of West Simsbury (which then included Canton) in 1744 and that the first burial there was in 1756. The house has a modern addition erected in 1983.

Asa S. Cook House (1870)

On 20 Charter Oak Place in Hartford is a three-story mansard-roofed Second Empire-style brick house erected in 1870. The entrance to the house is on the south side while the street-facing side has a two-story bay window above which is a pyramidal roof. The house was the residence of Asa S. Cook (1823-1916), a manufacturer who invented several machines for making wood screws. Born in Sandwich, New Hampshire, Cook learned the machinist’s trade while working in the mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. He came to Hartford in 1850 and worked for a time in the Colt Armory before establishing his own business in 1858. It was incorporated as the Asa S. Cook Company in 1896. In addition to wood screw and bolt machines and various wooden machine parts, the company‘s plant also for a time manufactured Stephen’s patent Parallel Vice.

In the early twentieth century the house was divided into apartments. Although it was later restored to be a single-family dwelling again, by the early 2000s it had fallen into disrepair. After 2013 the house was lovingly restored and modernized by the Lotstein family.

F. A. Hull Building (1907)

In 1843, Charles Hull started a hardware store in Danbury that went under several names over the years: from 1860 to 1890 it was known as Hull & Rogers and it was later called Hull Brothers. Over the years the company’s home near the corner of Main and Liberty Streets was twice burned down. After the second fire in 1906, Frederick Hull hired the Bridgeport architects Meloy & Beckwith to design a new building. To avoid further destruction by fire the building was constructed of brick, reinforced concrete and steel. Completed in 1907, the building became home to the store under its new name, F. A. Hull & Son. Located at 181-183 Main Street in Danbury, the building has a distinctive multi-colored pressed brick facade on the third floor. A gymnasium on that floor was used until 1924 as Danbury High School’s gym (in the 1890s the High School was located on the third floor of the Union Savings Bank). The store was incorporated as the Hull Hardware & Plumbing Company in 1919.

There was also a firm called F. A. Hull & Co. which was a manufacturer of steel machinery and machinists’ tools in Danbury. The company, which produced such products as the Danbury Universal Jaw Drill Chuck, was controlled in the 1870s and 1880s by the machine firm of Hull, Belden & Co, established by Major Russell Albert Belden of New Haven. After a fire destroyed the company’s plant in Danbury in 1888, Belden retuned to New Haven, where he started the Belden Machine Co. It seems that F. A. Hull & Co. continued as a a wholesale hardware firm, although that may have been a reference to the separate F. A. Hull & Son.

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Harry Strong House (1898)

The Victorian-era house at 46 Main Street in East Hampton was originally the home of Harry W. Strong (1867-1917) and was built not long after he purchased the property in 1898. Strong was a mail agent on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He married Cornelia E. Goff in 1885 and the couple had two daughters, who sold the house to descendants of bell manufacturer N. N. Hill in 1942.

Henry Gildersleeve, Jr. House (1888)

In 1888, Henry Gildersleeve, Jr. (1858-1944) erected a grand Victorian-era residence at 624 Main Street in Portland, across the street from the 1853 house erected by his father, the prominent shipbuilder Henry Gildersleeve, Sr. (1817-1894). The career of Henry Gildersleeve, Jr. is described in Gildersleeves of Gildersleeve, Conn. and the Descendants of Philip Gildersleeve, by Willard Harvey Gildersleeve:

Henry Gildersleeve, Jr., graduated in 1875 from Middletown High School and received the degree of B. A, from Wesleyan University in 1879 where he was a member of the football team and of the baseball team. He was also a member of the "Waverleys," a famous old ball club of Portland. In 1881, he received the degree of LL. B., from Columbia University. He spent his vacations and the following year in Hartford, Ct., in the law office of Judge Hammersley of Connecticut Supreme Court. Shortly after he was admitted to the bar in N. Y. City and entered the law office of Messrs. Huntley & Bower. After another year of constant work and study his health was affected, resulting in a serious attack of brain fever. Recovering from the attack, he took chaise of the schooner "Ruth Robinson," and made a trip with it. He then entered the store of S. Gildersleeve & Sons as clerk and becoming interested, was made partner in 1885. He was also part owner of the Gildersleeve and Cromwell Ferry. He organized the Gildersleeve Coal Co. in 1885, was notary public and secretary of the Portland Water Co. In 1900 he sold his interest in the store, having been employed by the Tonawanda Iron & Steel Co., of Tonawanda, N. Y,, on their whaleback steamers. In 1901 he sold the large mansion which he built in 1888 at 624 Main street, Gildersleeve, Ct., to his brother, Oliver, and after working in the Gildersleeve shipyard until 1907, devoted his attention to tobacco raising. Episcopalian. Resides in Gildersleeve, Ct.

The house was later the residence of Oliver’s son Walter Gildersleeve (1874-1949).